EN
Investing in digital marketing is a must — regardless of whether your company operates in a highly competitive or niche, monopolistic market. In fact, in a world where people spend the majority of their time online, your best chance of reaching your target audience and converting them into customers lies in developing an effective online presence for your business.
However, the simple fact is that digital marketing doesn’t always yield the results business owners require. And the cause isn’t an ineffective approach to creating online ad strategies that work for your brand. Instead, it’s an inadequate branding tactic that’s failing to position your business as a credible, competent, and reliable entity.
In other words, digital marketing success depends on your ability to build brand trust. More importantly, it requires a commitment to transparency and communication that most businesses fail to grasp.
So, if you want to supercharge your brand’s reputation and drive growth, here’s everything you need to know about building trust in digital marketing, along with some examples to take inspiration from.
The simple truth about running a business in 2025 is that you don’t need an impressive, innovative, or exceptionally creative digital marketing strategy. Yes, all of these elements can help build brand and product awareness, engage potential customers, and create a short-term uptick in sales.
However, if you’re after long-term, consistent brand growth, you need to focus on brand trust.
But why is brand trust so important for digital marketing and business growth in the first place?
The simple fact is that people only buy from companies they trust. According to Edelman, 81% of consumers need to trust a brand to entertain the notion of making a purchase.
And if that’s not enough to convince you of the importance of trust, consider the following.
The same organization conducted further research in 2025. It found that brand trust is a key purchasing factor for the majority of consumers. In fact, 88% of people consider brand credibility to be as important as product price and quality, which is huge, considering that we’re entering a period of downtrading and conservative spending.
Then there’s the question of how consumers spend with brands they find trustworthy vs. those they don’t.
Salsify, for instance, discovered that 87% of shoppers would pay more to buy from brands they trust. And CX Dive’s research found that the premium people would pay for solutions made by credible organizations is as high as 25%.
In other words, positioning your company as credible could allow you to charge as much as one-fourth more than your competitors. That’s a huge deal!
And the best part is that the benefits of building brand trust don’t end there.
Research suggests that people buy more from brands they trust (with 40% of consumers not being willing to purchase from companies they don’t consider trustworthy).
Moreover, it’s not just loyalty you receive when focusing on credibility. Doing so also allows you to enjoy the immense benefits of word-of-mouth marketing, seeing as 61% of consumers recommend trusted brands to their friends.
Now that you comprehend the importance of brand trust in digital marketing and business growth, it’s time to explore strategies for positioning your business as credible.
Ultimately, science says that trust is built on three primary building blocks: ability, integrity, and benevolence. Thus, if you want to establish a brand reputation that is based on credibility, it’s a good idea to explore opportunities to integrate all three of these qualities into your online presence.
The factor of ability is relatively easy to explain. It has to do with your organization’s competence, expertise, and experience, all of which are reflected in your capacity to effectively remove customer pain points.
Ultimately, people don’t want to waste their hard-earned money on solutions that don’t work. Instead, they seek effectiveness. Furthermore, they often demand personalized products and services that address their very specific pain points and frustrations.
So, as you aim to establish brand trust via digital marketing, one of the best things you can do is to support value propositions related to your brand’s competence with relevant proof. Additionally, explore and utilize opportunities to highlight the value you offer — particularly from a customer-centric point of view.
On the one hand, you can accomplish this by showcasing standard examples of customer feedback throughout key landing pages. This is what Rosie, a popular AI phone answering service, does with the reviews section on its homepage. Think of product ratings, reviews, customer logos, and media mentions as opportunities to show that your solution genuinely does what it promises to do. And feel free to play up positive feedback that defines the pain points your solution is capable of removing.
On the other hand, you can dive deeper with trust-building content formats by reserving a space within your digital presence for data-backed case studies. Because this type of content takes a closer look at how your product or service removes customer pain points, it can be an exceptional method for building customer confidence in innovative or low-trust industries. The StackBlitz case studies shown below are an excellent example of this tactic in action, relying both on informational value and the reputations of the brand’s clients to build trust.
The second element of brand trust — integrity — is all about consistency.
At the end of the day, showing potential customers that you offer an effective solution isn’t enough to convince them of your brand’s credibility. It’s just as essential to show they can always rely on your brand and solutions to remove their pain points.
The reason that integrity is so essential is that most buyers crave stability and convenience. They’re not afraid to spend their hard-earned money on effective solutions. However, they do want to be sure that their investment will go towards a product or service that will genuinely make their lives better and easier.
So, how do you prove brand integrity via digital marketing to drive brand trust?
Well, one of the easiest methods to accomplish this is to focus on consistency. Something as simple as dedicating a portion of your marketing activity to trust-building content can be a great way to elevate brand credibility with lasting results.
For instance, check out Simform’s Facebook presence. You’ll find that the brand’s social media strategy consists almost entirely of delivering valuable knowledge to followers. This approach helps Simform establish a reputation of an organization that’s competent and dedicated to delivering positive experiences to both customers and followers. Moreover, the social media tactic positions the brand as an authority on the topic of engineering, resulting in its target audience automatically turning to this brand when they experience a pain point they know Simform can resolve.
Source: facebook.com
Finally, when it comes to building trust, benevolence is a crucial factor for elevating credibility. And it doesn’t really matter whether you’re trying to elevate credibility online or offline. The requirements are more or less the same — your prospects simply want to be sure that you have their best interest at heart.
In 2025, consumers are no longer satisfied with being treated as a number or a source of income for businesses — a transgression most brands are guilty of. Instead, they demand that companies treat them as valued and unique individuals and invest in delivering enjoyable customer experiences.
So, if you want to position your company as trustworthy, lead your digital marketing strategy with what you can offer rather than focusing on what you will get.
For example, DialMyCalls actively publishes tutorial content on its blog that teaches prospects to optimize business communication, like this post on how to send a mass text. And, sure, the brand could simply point out that it offers a product that automates the process. Nevertheless, it still gives away some of its proprietary knowledge for free, knowing that it’s a surefire way to earn customer trust and boost conversions down the line.
Now you have a better understanding of what it takes to build brand trust via digital marketing.
However, the simple truth is, utilizing social proof and producing educational content isn’t enough to cut through the noise in 2025 — especially if you consider that almost all brands incorporate these tactics into their marketing strategies.
So, what does it take to stand out as a credible industry authority that customers can rely on to resolve their pain points? One solution could be to focus on transparency and communication.
Despite often being overlooked, transparency plays a crucial role in building brand trust — especially in digital settings. Why? Because people are becoming increasingly weary of branded content. Instead, they’re actively seeking authentic and honest brand interactions, willingly rewarding businesses for their sincerity.
And the best way to see how this sentiment affects conversion outcomes is to study how consumers react to specific advertisements and content types in 2025.
For example, research suggests that 26% of people no longer trust influencers. Moreover, 66% of people can easily detect soft advertising in digital settings.
On the other hand, 90% of consumers say authenticity plays a role in determining their likelihood of buying from a business, pointing out user-generated content formats as a reliable source for collecting product info during their buying journeys.
Additionally, consumer behavior research consistently shows that brand values and an organization’s willingness to respect customer privacy play a role in earning customer confidence.
So, what does this mean when trying to build trust via digital marketing?
It clearly shows that you can and should harness the power of transparency. Moreover, it emphasizes the impact of communication and relationship building in driving long-term business success.
In other words, positioning your business as a credible entity and using that reputation to drive positive digital marketing outcomes necessitates a commitment to honesty, genuine connection, and a strong focus on nurturing relationships with your target audience.
The great news is that these elements seamlessly slot into most digital marketing strategies.
For instance, something as simple as not hiding negative reviews and actively responding to less-than-ideal customer feedback in a public manner can be a great method to demonstrate trustworthiness. Blume does this quite well on its product pages, but, of course, you can also extend the approach to social media and your My Google Business profile.
Or how about being 100% open with your customers? If you check out Pipette Baby, you’ll see that they often address ingredient shortages and product formulations, using transparency to get customers up to speed on what’s happening with their favorite products and being open about potential product changes that could affect users.
Additionally, if you’re trying to build trust through digital marketing, it’s worth exploring opportunities for relationship building throughout your online presence. This can be as simple as inviting your target audience to engage with your brand through social media. Or, you can be more proactive and create dedicated communities where customers (and non-customers) can seek help or advice related to the solutions you offer — a tactic expertly used by brands such as HyperX.
It’s also worth exploring opportunities to turn the spotlight onto your customers (instead of solely focusing on your brand or products) — especially knowing that feeling appreciated makes consumers more willing to buy from brands and increases their likelihood of remaining loyal clients. Check out Omsom’s approach on Instagram for a tactic you can easily recreate.
Basing your digital marketing strategies on brand trust is an exceptional method to drive brand growth. Consumers actively choose to buy from businesses they perceive as credible, competent, and reliable. Plus, establishing brand authority also allows you to pursue long-term growth goals by helping you earn and hold onto your target audience’s loyalty.
Fortunately, there are many methods to boost brand trust online. From easy hacks like showing off social proof on your homepage to more advanced tactics like supporting your claims with scientific evidence, there’s a variety of methods that can effectively nurture credibility.
However, if you want to guarantee that your ideal customers see your brand as an entity they can trust and count on to have their best interests at heart (that is, to see them as people — not just a source of income), consider leading with transparency and communication.
At the end of the day, prioritizing integrity and connection may not be the most effective way to boost conversions in the short term. But you can rest assured that approaching branding in this manner will deliver an impressive ROI — particularly if you’re aiming for long-term success based on brand-customer relationships, loyalty, and mutual respect.
